Pass the Guinness? Oops too high, too low, too oh, NO.

We're having a rough day at the homestead, cleaning before the house-sitters get here, and packing, cleaning, plus making all the last-minute arrangements of billpaying and service-stopping and emptying the refrigerator. That last one leaves us almost regretting that Daddy got such a generous supply of Guinness for Father's Day from the eldest. That now needs to be polished off...can't have it wasted after all.

The sacrifices we make for our holidays, honestly...

Turns out that Guinness are celebrating the 250th anniversary of Arthur Guinness putting his signature to a 9,000 year lease on Saint James' Gate in Dublin, and as part of the festivities they're offering a few prizes to their loyal boozers customers.

Well, that sounded interesting, so I took a look at the prizes.

One is a trip into space (or at least the upper atmosphere) aboard the Virgin Galactic which will take the winner 70 miles above the earth, travelling 3 times the speed of sound, in an airplane-spaceship hybrid type thing. Uh, Challenger. Pass.

There's also a journey to the bottom of the sea off the coast of Norway, where the winner can enjoy his/her Guinness in a deep-sea pub. Now, call me picky, but I think I'd enjoy my pint a whole lot more off the coast of Hawaii. I mean, NORWAY? Isn't Norway really just an abbreviation for NORth-of-where-hell-freezes-so-no-WAY? Yeah, I think it is.

The last of the big prizes is a personal, exclusive performance by the Black-Eyed Peas at a secret venue. (Ooohhh, secret!) Ok, I'll admit I had to google 'Black-Eyed Peas' and wade through a whole lot of southern recipes to find out just who they were. Oh wait... Fergie? My Humps?. Egads. But after the other two prizes, what choice is there but this one? ...Can I bring a gun?

So yeah, obviously I won't be trying for any of these, but if the competition takes your fancy, you can read more about the Guinness Experience giveaway right here. You need to be at least 18 to enter the website. Or ok, you'll need to say you're at least 18, to enter the website.

Now if, like me, you found those adventures just too high, too low, or too irritating, there's always those inner adventures to turn to...

Small Beer Press accepts queries for novel-length manuscripts or short story collections, and publishes 3-6 titles per year.

Spaceports & Spidersilk is a bit hard to say if you ask me, but kids like it. If you like to write for kids, they'll pay $2 per story and $10 for artwork.

Ocean Magazine appears quarterly and will consider stories, essays, poetry and articles about (no surprise) the ocean, whether scientific or spiritual. Photographs also welcome--the next deadline is 15th July, but if that's too close the next is in October.

Oceanview Publishing, "where great books are always on the horizon", accepts manuscripts for adults, especially mystery, thriller and suspense. Check out their News page: many of their titles are bringing home awards.

In looking for "Black Eyed Peas", the closest I could find fiction-marketwise was the Black Warrior Review... well that's close, right? If you're serious about writing you mostly likely know these folks already; not easy to get onto their pages but surely worth the try. Their Fifth-ever Contest is currently open, with a tempting prize of $1,000, but they're asking a whopper of a reading fee, enough to buy you a few pints of Guinness instead, if you come to your senses in time. Good luck if you go for it anyway.

Meanwhile, another pint's finished here, so it's back to the refrigerator I go. Ugh, this packing lark is hard work...